Well it looks as though the credit crisis has finally seeped into Vancouver’s economy and it looks like it may take on a pretty big victim. It’s reported that the developer of the 2010 Olympic village is hitting a rough patch and may not be able to obtain the necessary financing to finish the project. I have a buddy that works in the industry and assures me that everything is fine. However, lets for a minute assume the headlines are true and my buddy is wrong.
The project which is slated to be finished by November 2009 has an estimated cost of $1 billion. The thing is this project will be finished with or without the developer being able to obtain financing. If they fail to get the necessary money to finish it, the taxpayers of Vancouver will be on the hook for approximately $60-70 million. I believe that to be a conservative estimate and the figure is probably closer to a $100 million.
Now I can see the APC just salivating with such witty taunts as “see, we told you the Olympics were a bad”, blah, blah, blah. Perhaps, they will link it to the Montreal Olympics etc, etc… Or we spend even more of our tax dollars on the homeless, because $644 million apparently is not enough for them. Egregious fucktards.
It would be stupid of me and any other individual to think Vancouver is immune to this crisis. When banks stop lending to unqualified Main Streeters, you can say good bye to the egregious spending on electronics and cars that you can not afford. After all, America as we know it is dead.
Folks, our dynamic condo market is having its funding pulled on numerous new projects that were set to break ground. Gone are the days of advertising Whalley as the new Yaletown or Abbotsford being the next great cosmopolitan city and having lines of people actually believing the bullshit hype.Reality check, Surrey is and will not have a Yaletown in our lifetime. Abbotsford cosmopolitan? The Urban Dweller shall leave that for you to ridicule.
It’s time for people to start to reevaluate their spending and savings habit. If this hits home as it has in the USA then look for the sale of autos to decline sharply, and then trickle down into other segments of the economy. This is a vicious cycle that you do not want to be caught off guard in. Develop a strategy and execute it or else you will feel the wrath of mother market. Viz.
(photo courtesy of entheosfog @ flickr)
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